Gay Parents Better Straight

Gay Parents Better Straight, Gay marriage, and especially gay parenting, has been in the cross hairs in recent days. On Jan. 6, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum told a New Hampshire audience that children are better off with a father in prison than being raised in a home with lsbn parents and no father at all. And last Monday (Jan. 9), Pope Benedict called gay marriage a threat “to the future of humanity itself,” citing the need for children to have heterosexual homes.

But research on families headed by gays and lsbns doesn’t back up these dire assertions. In fact, in some ways, gay parents may bring talents to the table that straight parents don’t.

Gay parents “tend to be more motivated, more committed than heterosexual parents on average, because they chose to be parents,” said Abbie Goldberg, a psychologist at Clark University in Massachusetts who researches gay and lsbn parenting. Gays and lsbns rarely become parents by accident, compared with an almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals, Goldberg said. “That translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement.”